Recurrent Vulvovaginal Thrush

Georgia

I guess the realisation that like it was a recurring thing was I remember when I first got it, when I was a teenager, and reading like the NHS webpage about thrush and reading this sentence at the bottom and it was like: “Some people experience recurring thrush,” and thinking like, ‘oh man, it must be awful to be that kind of person, because this is really horrible,’ [laughs] and then I was like, ‘oh, this is me a few years later,’ and I was bit like... I guess I’m quite an optimistic person and I just thought, ‘they’ll be some way of sorting this out, like they’ll be a treatment, they’ll be something that we can do.’

Harry

If I had it once or twice in my life, yeah, it would be uncomfortable, but the fact that when you get it recurrently, when you get it every month, it’s a completely different condition in my eyes, I think you should... they should almost be treated completely separately and not related. Because thrush is bad on its own, but how... when you have it like so consistently, it’s just... it’s another kettle of fish, it’s not... it’s just horrendous, it’s a completely different thing.

KJ

Yeah, and it’s not as severe I think now that... I mean it can be uncomfortable and not nice, but I don’t think... I remember the earlier experiences with thrush being really quite severe and horrible, and really not nice, and really sort of like burning, red raw, split skin, you know really not nice.

Anna

I’m pleased it’s easy to buy over-the-counter treatment but I am you know genuinely slightly horrified by the amount of over-the-counter treatment I’ve taken, because also the check is like... I lied con... I lied constantly to people in Boots who were like, “Oh, have you taken this pill in the last six months?” “No.” I would have taken it like three weeks before, I just wanted to have it again, and I think I’ve probably [chuckles] taken that pill like way too many times.

Zoya

Getting an appointment was quite difficult, but once I did, the GPs were sort of understanding but I had to have a real conversation with them and I could only do that when I was lucky enough to get through to a female GP, and they were quite reassuring, but it’s always a different one so I couldn't follow my case up with one person, then I felt like I had to go through it all again with the next one and explain my full situation and it... you know, trying to get on track and like you'll go, you know, “I have recurrent thrush,” and then it’s like, oh yeah, we've got to swab again and it’s... I had to go through it all again with the next new one, does that make sense?

Ayesha

So, I thought they would... have seen this time, have seen this a million times before cause of how common it is, I thought they would know exactly what was going on. I thought that after prescribing me fluconazole for like the fourth, fifth time, somebody would have realised, ‘OK, this is not working, and there needs to be more testing done here to figure out what’s going on,’ or to at least understand the wider picture as to why I'm so susceptible or vulnerable to them, but there was no kind of support.

Nysha

It just felt like I was in a never-ending cycle of woe. Like I said to you, I stopped dating, I didn't want to be around or have any sort of... and sort of sexual contact with... with guys or anything, I... so I just literally shutdown and stopped going out as well because I was so uncomfortable at times, and trying to explain to people that... at the time it was just... I didn't want to go into why I was feeling so uncomfortable.

Teddy

People do feel like it makes them less of a woman in the way that a lot of cis-men with erectile dysfunction can feel like they’re less manly for it. I do think a lot of people with things like thrush might feel it’s like a... it’s like that stereotype of like, ‘ah, pristine condition woman,’ but I do think that being non-binary’s kind of meant that I didn’t particularly care about that to begin with, so that’s one less area of stigma that I happen... that’s like I’m less worried about it from... I’m not worried about it from that angle.

Jody

Well, it’s changed my life really because it... that’s how bad it... it kind of was, it was, yeah, just getting in the way of everything; whereas now like I feel like I have more control, which is kind of what I wanted I guess when I was going to the appointments, that’s what I was you know asking for in the end, it was like I need control of this, like this thing is controlling me, like I don’t know what more I can do.